by Karina Halle
This was one of the reasons why he didn’t want to tell her. She doesn’t need the stress.
“Easy, Luisa,” he warns her. “Everything is fine.”
“It’s not fine! Why does Vicente have her? Did you tell him to take her?”
“Not at all. I merely planted the idea in his head.”
“What the fuck?”
“You are so sexy when you use your filthy mouth, you know that?”
“Fuck you!” she snarls. “You better fucking explain right now just what the hell is going on. What idea did you plant in Vicente’s head? How is this even possible?”
“Actually it’s kind of your fault.”
“What?!”
Javier is enjoying this far too much.
“I knew if I planted information about Ellie, the right information, that Vicente might be curious enough to seek her out. He did. You told him to look up the Tijuana cartel and that’s where he found the files on her. The files I’d planted there. That’s why he went to America. No reason other than to find her. Well, actually, maybe he wanted to spread his wings and get the fuck away from us, I can’t blame him. But that was the catalyst anyway. And he found her. Easily. I thought perhaps he would take Ellie but the daughter is so much better in the long run.”
Luisa is shaking her head, unable to understand any of it. “Why? Why do this? Do they operate a shipping lane, do they run drugs, are they leaders of a gang? Why?”
Javier shrugs. And lies. “No real reason, it’s about evening the score.”
“Score! You’re still keeping score after, what, twenty-one years or something?”
“I have my pride.”
“Oh my god,” she says, her voice bitter. “Fuck your pride, Javi.”
“Be that as it may, it’s happening.”
“You won’t harm a hair on that girl’s head,” she threatens. “I’ll stop you.”
Javier gives her a tired look. “Yes, yes. I thought you would be happy that Vicente is back.”
“Happy? Yes, but now that I know why he left to begin with…”
He gives her a pointed look, pleading for her to understand. “Vicente needs to grow up. He needs to learn what life is about. We’ve sheltered him.”
“Sheltered?” Luisa practically shrieks. “You had him killing men when he was just a boy.”
“We had him killing men when he was just a boy,” he reminds her sharply. “Don’t play your moral high ground here, we both know just how dirty you can be. And that’s fine. It’s what we are now and what we’ve always been. There’s no point changing anymore, if anything we have to get tougher and so does our son.” Javier leans across the desk so his eyes are burning just inches from his wife’s. “This is about our survival. This is about our son’s survival. Do you want him to die because his heart is too soft, because he can’t make the decisions he needs to? I love him Luisa, just as much as you do. This needs to happen to make him a man, to make him strong.”
He holds her gaze for a few seconds, the intensity burning between them. Then he sits back in his chair and looks away. “Otherwise he’s as good as dead. Only the strong survive here. Only the ruthless. Only the ones who will do what they have to in order to get to the top and stay at the top. This is trial by fire. He’ll come out better than before. You know yourself, the burns create scar tissue. You stop feeling. And that’s what makes you stronger. That’s all we can ask.”
He doesn’t look at her for a few moments. Though the music is still playing, moving onto “Halo” and the rest of the Violator album, he doesn’t hear it. He just feels her anger rolling through her, mixed with despair. She wants so badly to protect her son from everything bad, but she has to realize that it’s impossible. Unless Vicente goes far away and never comes back, it won’t happen. And if he does that, there’s a chance that Luisa and Javier will both sink to the very bottom.
They won’t survive it.
Finally, Luisa gets up. She pauses and then grabs the bottle, drinking straight from it for a few gulps. Javier looks to her in wide-eyed surprise.
“Thanks for finally letting me in,” she whispers, barely glancing at him. “You might want to do it more often.”
And then she leaves the office, closing the door behind her.
Javier lets that remorse fill him again, acknowledges the hit of guilt. But as he pours more alcohol into his glass, the remorse fades away, leaving the room with Luisa.
He goes back to smiling.
Perhaps he’ll start dancing again.
Chapter Eleven
Violet
Darkness.
The world is dark but a false darkness. Like when I put on a sleep mask to trick my eyes into thinking the room is dark. I know deep down it’s not. I can tell it’s a lie.
This darkness is a lie. But it sinks into me.
Suffocates me.
Even the air I breathe is dark.
Black.
It’s thick and hot, too.
I feel like I’m going to choke.
I try and take a breath, feeling adrenaline trying to fight its way out of my heart and into my veins but everything is too slow.
I keep being lulled away into a dreamless sleep.
I prefer it, so I don’t fight it.
There the dark is real and calming, like swimming in a lake at midnight.
Then I’m jostled out of the lake, to where it’s hot and sticky and smells stale.
The false darkness again.
Hands grab me roughly.
I’m naked.
Why am I naked?
I need to care about this.
I should care about this.
I try and fight through the stickiness in my veins, fight to just fight. Fight for a way out of the dark.
I move my limbs.
The hands grab me tighter.
“Be a good girl, senorita,” a voice says, floating toward me and then away. I can see the words formed like smoke, disappearing like the Cheshire cat.
Be a good girl.
Senorita.
I know this voice.
It’s not Vicente’s.
But close.
And then.
Vicente!
I’m hit with a fragment of memory.
Vicente and I in our hotel room.
He told me he loved me.
I told him I loved him.
We made love.
It was like nothing I’d known before.
Then I woke up to see him pointing a gun at two men.
Oh my god, what happened to me?
What happened to him?
“Be a good girl, senorita,” the voice murmurs. “And he won’t hurt you. Do what he says, and he won’t hurt you. You’ve been so good with me but now I must leave you.”
Now I must leave you.
Who is this voice?
His voice is calm, fluid. A liquid murmur that gives me something to drink in.
Something to hold onto.
I don’t know who this is.
But I’m afraid of what happens when he goes.
Fighting through, swimming through, wading through, comes the fear.
It knocks at my door.
It says, Violet! Wake up! Wake up! Run! Fight!
Fly away.
Fly away.
Away from here.
“Where am I?” I try and say but the words come out garbled from my lips and echo back to me.
I can barely breathe.
My eyes open.
To darkness.
False darkness.
There’s something over my head.
I try and move my hands but at that moment they are wrenched behind me, tied together.
“Be a good girl,” the whisper comes again. “Your Vicente is counting on you, yes?”
I think I fall asleep again.
Any pain and fuzziness is gone. Just for a moment I’m back in the black lake.
But I know I can’t stay for long.
I know something is
waiting on the other side.
Vicente.
My love.
Suddenly, I’m startled.
Freezing cold water hits my skin.
It shocks me awake with a gasp that pulls fabric to my mouth, nearly choking me.
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
The clarity pushes through.
The memories pile down.
The parking lot.
Captured by a tall man in a suit, a brooding face of facial hair that was only handsome for a second before he grabbed me.
I never saw it coming.
He made it look like an art.
Ballet.
Choreographed kidnapping.
Before I could get out more than one scream, his hand was at my mouth, tasting of cigars, his gun was in my side.
And Vicente came running.
Just like the man knew he would.
They were Vicente’s men. His father’s.
Why did he plunge a syringe into my neck?
Drugging me.
Why did they take me?
I try and move my hands, to feel if I’m still naked but I’m bound everywhere.
Hands at my back.
Ankles at my front.
I’m sitting, probably on a chair.
And I’m shivering. My body quaking still from the cold water, the goosepimples all over.
I know I’m naked.
That robe was lost a long time ago.
I can only pray I wasn’t raped.
I can only pray that won’t happen now.
Who will even answer my prayers?
Where is Vicente?
“The drugs take time to wear off,” a voice says. It is not the same as the one earlier, the man who called me senorita. The man who took me in the parking lot. I realize he is now one and the same.
No, this voice is different. It’s calm, as his was, and polished. He speaks in English and his accent is light. But there’s a buoyancy there. Amusement. Yet it does nothing to quell my fears, the fears that are fighting through the drugs. In this voice lies a wicked curiosity, the kind that pushes cats off of balconies, just to see if they have nine lives, feeling no worse for wear if they don’t.
“You can only ride it out,” he says. “And we do this slowly.”
There is a shuffle in front of me. The sound of a chair being scraped along hard floor. The sound of a door closing with soft whoosh.
It sounds crazy, all of this is beyond crazy, beyond fear even, but I swear I feel his eyes on my body, crawling over my naked flesh like a fire ant.
“You have a lot of tattoos,” he says and my instincts were right. He’s inspecting me. “Too many. I’m sure many tell you that. I’m sure your father did them all.”
I tense up at the mention of my father.
Oh god, I want nothing more than to be at home with them right now. To take everything I ever said about them back. I don’t care that they lied, I don’t care that they were criminals and they did bad things. Vicente was right. We all do bad things, each and every one of us.
I helped kill a man yesterday.
And today—if it’s even a today—I’m here.
Somewhere.
Naked and covered in ice cold water, strapped to a chair.
With a man I don’t know.
“I need to see your face,” the man says. “I bet it’s a beautiful one in person.”
In person?
I barely have time to process the thought.
The bag lifts off my head and I’m met with stale, damp air.
I manage to open my eyes, I swear they are glued shut, blinking into the dark, adjusting to dim light.
I almost gasp.
I’m staring right into Vicente’s sharp eyes.
Only it’s not Vicente at all.
It’s a man that looks a lot like him, save for a few lines and greying hairs.
It’s his father.
Javier Bernal.
And he smiles at me with all the warmth of a snake.
“Yes,” he says, appraising me, like I’m food on a plate. “You are prettier in person. Even prettier than Ellie. You’re less hardened by the world. Your cheeks are rounder, lips fuller. Very, very pretty Violet. I can see why Vicente has been so taken with you. He’s been quite ridiculous, you know.”
I can only stare at him. I know this isn’t just how family introductions go. I know there’s no mistake or wrong idea, that this isn’t some strange initiation into the cartel.
I know that Javier has me right where he wants me.
I just don’t know why.
Wait.
Wait.
My brain tries to replay what he just said, tries to push past the last strains of the sedative and realize the reality.
What did he just say?
About how my father did my tattoos.
About how I look like Ellie.
“My mother?” I try to say but my voice hurts, my throat so dry that it comes out in a frog-like croak.
“Would you like some water, my dear?” he asks. He gets up and I watch as he goes over to a table at the side of the room.
I start to take in everything.
I’m in large space, maybe fifteen by ten feet.
There’s a metal chair across from me where Javier was sitting.
An empty bucket next to it, where he must have splashed the water on me from.
On the other side of the bucket, a glass jar, sealed.
There’s a high table by the wall but the only thing on it is a plastic cup and one litre of water. My mouth automatically starts salivating at the sight.
The rest of the room is bare except for a hose. It feels cold and it’s not just from the water. There are no windows. It feels subterranean.
I can’t imagine what goes on in here.
Actually, I can.
I can very well.
But my imagination is held back by the drugs.
As is my fear.
Just a bit.
I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.
To act like this is all some crazy dream, a drug trip, when it’s real and it’s fucking dangerous.
Beyond dangerous.
Javier comes back and I notice the cup is only filled a quarter of the way.
And he doesn’t give it to me. He sits back in the chair, arms folded over the back of it like he’s having a casual conversation, shooting the shit, letting the cup dangle from one hand.
But as casual as he tries to come across, I know he’s anything but.
His eyes are too hardened, too calculating.
And far too excited.
It’s hard for him to hide it.
“Why do you know my mother?” I ask, my voice is still parched.
Javier grins. It’s unnerving. A smile that stretches across his face, contrasting with his eyes. I can see Vicente in them and yet he’s nothing like this. When I look into Vicente’s eyes I see warmth. I see a man struggling to do the right thing, to be the right person, whatever that person will be. Good or bad, Vicente embraces it all but he always wants to better himself.
With Javier I just get nothing. It’s closed off. Guarded. Hidden.
Everything about him suggests it, from his blue grey dress shirt to his navy slacks. Shoes, light loafers, no socks. A watch at his wrist. Hair longer in the back so it’s curling up slightly, swooped to the side in a deep part.
This is a man who takes great care in getting dressed. It’s not enough that he’s doing it for himself. He wants others to care as well. Anyone who doesn’t insults him deeply.
But then again, I can’t make rash judgements. Not right now. To peg this man one way and have him be the other might just be the death of me.
You think you’re going to get out of here alive? I ask myself.
Vicente will help me.
I know this.
And yet, the thought makes everything inside me shatter like glass.
“Yo
ur mother?” Javier asks. “What do you want more? Answers? Or water?”
“Water,” I whisper.
He grins. Wicked.
He gets off the chair and comes over to me.
Holds the cup out to my lips.
Stops half way.
Tips the cup slowly, so the water pours out straight down between my parted legs.
I nearly die inside.
And I can’t hide it from my face.
I gasp in wild, raw desperation.
That water would have fixed everything.
“You know,” he says, reaching forward with one hand.
I flinch, rigid in the chair.
He doesn’t seem to notice.
Tucks my hair behind my ear, his eyes never leaving mine.
“Your mother was your age when I met her,” he muses. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been with a girl so young.”
I try and swallow. Nearly choke.
I don’t understand anything.
“That’s right, Violet McQueen,” Javier says, straightening up and heading over to the water bottle, filling another glass, this time to the brim. “I know your mother. Does that surprise you?”
Yes.
No.
I don’t know anymore.
I don’t even know if I can care anymore.
My brain is stumbling, trying to keep up, to understand what it all means.
He sits back down in the chair and takes a sip from the glass, wetting his lips and smiling to himself before he speaks again. “Vicente never told you why he found you, did he?”
Oh god.
Oh god, please. What is he talking about?
“You see Violet, your mother, even your fucking father, and I, have a complicated past. One that I’m sure they’ve erased over the last twenty years. But don’t you worry. Don’t you worry, my angel, I am sure they’ve had me on their mind the whole time. They hadn’t forgotten.” He pauses, placing the cup of water on the ground. I automatically follow it with my gaze. “Are you even listening to me?” he asks.
His voice is so sharp, so insulted, that I have to look up. “I need water.”
I swear he rolls his eyes.
He grabs the water, half of it sloshing out of the cup, and he comes back over to me.
“Drink up, then,” he says, raising it to my lips. “But don’t say I never treated you unfairly. You can never say that about me.”
To his credit, he tips the glass slowly and in control, and I gulp it down, wishing half the contents weren’t splashing below on my stomach. I can’t get enough. I want water until I die from it.
